Filesystems
 

I have a 160GB external drive that I would like to format into a filesystem that both my Linux and Windows installs can read. It obviously cant stay as NTFS. My first thought is FAT32, but IIRC, FAT32 doesnt support large files well (and this drive is filled with them). How should I format this drive?

FAT32 is probably going to be your only safe bet.
Microsoft OSes will only reat FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and that newfangled one that is going to come with longhorn. And until the linux kernal has a stable ntfs module we're all stuck with fat32. . .

What I did was partition my drive into 3 parts:
An NTFS windows xp partition.
A EXT3 Linux Partition
and a FAT32 partition for the file that I use in both OSes (mainly media and documents)

My setup is similar to Marburg's (except Reiser instead of ext3). However, I know there's some ext2 drivers 'out there' for Windows as I used to use them.

Explore2fs - not 'as native' though
Ext2fsd - looks more promising

I'm not sure what program I used to use, though...

nb - linux can read NTFS (many, many disclaimers about damage etc here) if you set the right options at kernel compile-time.

IMHO it's easier just to have another machine act as a fileserver. Then you can serve files over the network and not have to worry about this kind of crap.

Yes, a file server is the best idea. Failing that, however, FAT32 is your next best bet. You can try ext2, but the Windows drivers can cause issues, <i>especially</i> if you use ext3, which journals. You can screw things up or at least confuse things. Most systems default to ext3 nowadays.

I fail to see how a fileserver would help. Were I running a fileserver, it would be Linux, which would mean a filesystem that Windows couldnt see.

Grrr.... Annoying :(

FAT32 will not support a drive that size, even if you try to trick it by partitioning.

You can make linux recognize NTFS. The newest kernel has built in support, and all the older ones can be recompiled to recognize the filesystem by adding 4 lines of code or so.

Not an easy solution, and somewhat ugly, but it does work perfectly.

Yeah, I know that it can read it, but doesnt it tear it up if it tries to write to it?

There's always Samba....

Here at my office I've got a linux fileserver that exports the same directory as both an NFS mount and a Samba share.

Just be DAMN sure you close the pertinent ports on your firewall!

fat32 is your best bet.

If you only need read, go with NTFS. Otherwise I'd agree with dilber - fat32 is best bet.

numist, FAT32 supports upto 2 terabytes (for partitions), the drive size limits come from the controllers not having 48 lba or whatever

FAT32 doesn't have a problem as long as you don't have files that are larger then 4 gigabyte. Up to 4 gig it performs the same as any other filesystem.

OK... here is a related question. I am going to build a PVR soon. It will be running Linux. If I want to be able to get the saved filed off of the HDD from a Windows machine, should I format it as EXT3 and use Samba, or should I format it FAT32? I would be worried with FAT32 because if you were to record a long show, it could easily get too long for FAT32 to handle gracefully.

there are utulities that will allow you to mount or read an ext2/3 partition from windows, just use that if youa re just reading

Well sailor 420, 4 gigs compressed represents alot of video in an indivdual file. My gut feeling is that FAT32 will work out fine for you.

Basically it boils down to bit rate, at 2 megabits a second (a very high quality divx/xvid/mpeg-4/windows media file) you can record 266 minutes in a 4 gig file.

MPEG2 compression used on DVDs at around 10 megabits a second would only give you 53 minutes of video in a 4 gig file.

The original MPEG standard compression used in videoCDs is 1.5 megabits a second and that gives you 355 minutes in 4 gigs.

If you could tell me what software you plan on using I can check which codecs they use (and then what type of bitrate we are looking at) No matter what codec you use you can set the bitrate to fit your need.

Thats the problem, it will be MPEG2 (or something very similar, not very compressed at all) because the machine is a P3 800, and doesnt have the horsepower to encode at anything much better than that.

I will be running either MythTV (most likely) or Freevo.

Bottomline... you can switch between mpeg-4 and mpeg-2 depending on the length of the program you wish to record. But in 4 gigs your guaranteed two hours of recording at least, up to 8... kind of like working with VHS aint it?

Thats still cutting it pretty close...

Bah, why must this be so difficult :(

Your quoting wrong
700 megabytes/hour for mpeg-4
that means 4 gigs holds 5 hours + with mpeg-4

You can change the encoding when you need to record five hours... and you can adjust bit rates no matter what codec you use to sacrifice quality but gain space.

4 gigs is enough IMO

I dunno if your system could even handle full bandwidth MPEG-2.